Color of Education

The Color of Education Map includes leaders and visionaries in research, practice, activism and policy working together to achieve racial equity in North Carolina schools. Each month we will feature a Color of Education Mapmaker and we start with Guiding Committee Member, Dr. Iheoma U. Iruka.

Iheoma U. Iruka, PhD, is the Chief Research Innovation Officer and Director of the Center for Early Education Research and Evaluation (CEERE) at the HighScope Educational Research Foundation. In this role, Dr. Iruka leads research strategy to drive innovation in the field of early childhood education. Dr. Iruka’s research is centered on determining how early experiences impact poor and ethnic minority children’s learning and development, and the role of the family and of education environments and systems. As director of the CEERE, Dr. Iruka focuses on research that advances the knowledge base on key factors that address opportunity gaps and examines HighScope’s curriculum, assessments, and implementations to improve outcomes for children, families, and communities.

Dr. Iruka earned a PhD in applied developmental psychology from the University of Miami. She is a current member of several national boards and committees, including Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) and National Black Child Development Institute (NCBDI).

Click here to learn more about her upcoming event.

Color of Education is a partnership between the Public School Forum of NC, The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, and Policy Bridge at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Color of Education seeks to build deeper connections across the fields of research, policy, and practice and bring together communities, educators, policymakers, experts and other key stakeholders focused on developing action-oriented approaches for achieving racial equity in education across the state of North Carolina.